Title: Shadow Dwellers
Author: Medie
Rating: PG-13 for femmeslashy overtones
Character: Selina Kyle, Lois Lane
Spoilers: None really - does reference events from the Batman/Superman Animated Movie.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Author's Note: How this end up Lois-POV? I do not know. But yet...there you are.
Summary: Selina Kyle is everything Lois Lane has always despised...
"Shadow Dwellers"
by M.
Selina Kyle is everything Lois Lane has always despised. Perfect hair, perfect make up, perfect composure...perfect everything. The kind of woman who makes every woman around her feel like a frump who, no matter how much she tries, can never achieve the perfection that is so effortless for the goddess she envies.
Standing at the balcony railing beside the tall blonde, Lois resists the urge to pull out a cigarette and light up. It is a petty instinct born of a mean-spirited hope that like others of her ilk, Selina Kyle's delicate sensibilities would be offended by the smell of a cigarette. Even irritating her in the slightest would be extremely satisfying. She shakes off the urge with the smug realization that she knows something Catwoman does not. She's seen behind the mask that so draws the woman beside her. She is privy to Batman's secret and knows, if things were different, she would have the place in his life that Selina wants. The place she unwittingly rejects each time she rejects Bruce Wayne's advances.
The irony strikes Lois as she looks out at the Gotham night. It's Bruce that she wants...Batman she's not so crazy about. With Selina, it is the reverse. If one were to combine them both, Bruce would have the perfect woman. One in love with both facets of himself.
She hides a laugh beneath a cough and is surprised by a wave of sudden empathy for the woman standing nearby. Selina Kyle is not someone she is supposed to understand much less empathize with. But she does.
"Don't suppose you have a cigarette?"
Selina's voice is husky, seductive and in possession of a perfectly intimate pitch, it makes Lois feel as though she is the only person in the entire world. The sole focus of Selina's attention and she knows it is a ridiculous impression to have. The reporter in her begins to suspect there's something in the air that's causing these inane thoughts. Perhaps another of the Scarecrow's plots. She's heard he's tried things like this in Gotham City before.
Shaking herself free of the moment of oddity, she produces a pack of cigarettes, holding them out. "Clark tells me it's a filthy habit but..."
Selina smiles, full red-painted lips curving up, and Lois can't keep herself from staring at them. Watching as the supposedly reformed thief selects a cigarette from the package and brings it to that disgustingly luscious mouth, "But you refuse to give up the indulgence. Maven tells me the same thing."
After lighting her own cigarette, Lois shares a conspiratorial grin and her lighter. Her fingers brush against the silky soft skin of Selina's palm and the resulting charge from the brief contact races through them both. "Mother hens." She commiserates softly.
"Indeed." Selina agrees, laughing quietly as she brings the cigarette to her lips again. Beside her, Lois does the same and both women contemplate the eroticism inherent in the simple action of smoking a cigarette. Wondering why neither have contemplated it before. Both coming to the conclusion never mattered before. "I've read your articles," She reveals and Lois is surprisingly flattered. She's never been flattered by someone saying that before. "It takes a lot of daring to take on Lex Luthor."
Lois looks over, her own lips forming her trademark smirk, "I've read articles about you...it takes a lot of daring to take on Roland Daggett."
"Helps to have your own personal superhero as backup." Selina observes with a wicked laugh, one Lois echoes. "Just in case you find yourself in need of a little rescue."
"They do come in handy that way." She agrees, watching the tendrils of smoke play out in the night air, aware Selina is watching her. "Though, there are times when a girl wants to go solo, without her much vaunted protector hanging around in the shadows."
"Mmmm...true." Selina allows, flicking ash from the cigarette, dying embers scattering into the night. "But the shadows seem to be more the retreat of choice for Gotham...not Metropolis."
"Everyone retreats to the shadows sooner or later." Lois demurs with a casual wave of her hand before bringing the cigarette back to her mouth.
"Except us." Selina observes, the touch of her hand light on Lois', covering it where it rests on the railing. "The ones who eternally live their lives in the shadows."
Releasing smoke into the air, Lois curls her fingers about Selina's, the touch of the other woman's hand is warm, dry, and solid. Tangible. "Except us." She nods. "Escape from the shadows...that is our retreat."
Selina smiles, an honest smile, one that is tentative and just maybe, maybe a little vulnerable and Lois returns it.
Escape can be a very good thing.
Finis